Activist/actor Mark Ruffalo fights for clean water on Cape

Actor Mark Ruffalo, perhaps best-known for his role as the Hulk in the 2012 film "The Avengers," visited the Cape on Monday in his other role as aclean-water advocate and activist

AMY ANTHONY

BARNSTABLE — Actor Mark Ruffalo is perhaps best-known for his role as the Hulk in the 2012 film "The Avengers."

A lesser-known role is that of clean-water advocate and activist.

Just as the Hulk battles super villains, Ruffalo is battling the fossil fuel industry.

On Monday evening, Cape Cod Community College hosted Water Defense, the nonprofit organization founded by Ruffalo in an effort to protect water from fossil fuel and other contaminants.

"Our belief is that all human beings have a right to clean, fresh water," said Ruffalo during a phone interview Sunday. "They also have a right to know what is in the water they are living near, drinking and bathing in."

At Monday's presentation in the theater of the college's Tilden Arts Center, Ruffalo provided a brief overview of Water Defense before introducing Scott Smith, the chief scientist at Water Defense and an Osterville resident.

In 2013, Ruffalo reached out to Smith to learn more about his Opflex technology, which uses open-celled foam to absorb and filter contaminants in water. It has been used in high-profile oil-spill cleanups including the 2010 BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In October, when Smith met with Ruffalo and Water Defense Executive Director John Pratt, they realized they shared the same values and the same approach to work, Ruffalo said.

"The reason I'm working with Scott is because he's gone to every one of these disasters and he's not peddling anything while he's there," said Ruffalo. "He's been testing water, and he's been doing it on his own."

Smith is an entrepreneur and inventor who owns several companies that produce, distribute and market different foam products for commercial and industrial uses.

"When I learned about the flaws in instantaneous (testing), I felt an obligation to get into the community and do this," said Smith.

Smith has deployed versions of his foam in Bermuda, the Gulf of Mexico, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and for a 2011 oil spill in the Yellowstone River, he said.

"I always felt that we needed a credible, sensitive water-testing technology that I hadn't ever really seen available," said Ruffalo.

Instantaneous water testing uses a sample of water and is sent to a laboratory, where results can be manipulated, Ruffalo said.

The Opflex foam tests the entire water column, which is the surface to the bottom sediments, while submersed in water.

"It sits there, it accumulates water mass, it actually has water flowing through it," said Ruffalo.

Smith has licensed the Opflex technology to Water Defense, which refers to the technology as the Opflex environmental indicator.

"I had reservations about being seen as promoting any one particular product, but when I saw the efficacy of this particular technology, I wanted it for Water Defense," said Ruffalo.

Water Defense is now collaborating with Cape Cod Community College on a project to fingerprint, monitor and help reduce pollution of Cape Cod's waters.

"The vision is to develop a curriculum that has a set of standards that are employed when using the Water Defense environmental indicator," said Ruffalo.

Ruffalo said he hopes a national, open-source map will eventually be created in order to see the water baseline in a community before contamination occurs.

"You can begin to pinpoint where contamination happens," Ruffalo said. "We could start to track pollution and lead it back to polluters."

Cape Cod Community College students will "gain exposure to new material applications" and participate in "the testing of a new methodology," said John Cox, Cape Cod Community College president, in a Water Defense press release.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.